Reliable and affordable thermal management technologies remain a major challenge driven by the continuous miniaturization of integrated circuits, increasing functionality of mobile devices, and growing computing density in data centers. Development of the next generation of thermal interface materials (TIMs) is important for packaging and thermal management of monolithic and stacked integrated circuits, memory devices, microwave sources, light- emitting devices, and, solar cells.

Discovery of unique thermal properties of graphene motivated research on graphene’s applications as fillers in various TIMs and heat spreaders. Composites with the high loading of graphene fillers have the potential to deliver high thermal conductivity, low thermal contact resistance, and, in addition, electromagnetic interference (EMI) protection [4-5]. In this talk, I will outline recent progress in graphene enhanced TIMs, focusing on the graphene high-loading composites, which can be mass produced at low cost. Dual functionality graphene composites, which can serve as TIMs and EMI shields, will be discussed in details.

Examples of graphene TIMs, which meet industry’s requirements for thermal management of advanced electronics will be provided